A conference on art in the public space and digital media forms part of the international Art Line project.

17 – 18 May, 2013

Venue: The Baltic Sea Cultural Centre, 33/35 Korzenna St., Gdansk

The project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund

The role of art in the public space is frequently discussed in the Tri-City artistic circles. One thing that has recently stirred up the discourse is the growing number of festival-like projects with a more or less populist profile appearing in the urban space. The festivals vary in form and purpose but what they all share is the common air of an ephemeral event. Often dubbed interventions in the public space, their aim is to familiarise the average viewer with art.

What about the responsibility to local communities involuntarily exposed to and involved in such activities? What strategies, if any, could be employed to initiate cooperation with all those locals who experience thousands of strangers flooding their streets in a quest for artistic projects? Should such interventions in the public domain be represented by institutions? Isn’t it then a contradiction? And last but not least – what is the public space as such, since it no longer embraces merely the urban space?

The conference organised by the Gdansk City Gallery and the Baltic Sea Culture Centre will address these and other issues. The invited curators and artists will share their experience with projects in the public space. However, it is the inhabitants invited by the organisers who will remain at the centre of the discussion, both those accepting and rejecting such projects.